DoD hosts industry day for JEDI cloud contract

By Andrew Wagner | Published Sunday, March 11, 2018

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On March 7, the Department of Defense aimed to clear up confusion during an industry day for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure(JEDI) contract. As hundreds of contractors filled the Pentagon City Sheraton, Department of Defense leaders emphasized that the program was “more than just an I.T. contract.”

“I’m not asking you to build an I.T. system, I’m asking you to help us redefine how we defend our nation, how we win our nations wars,” said Brigadier General David Krumm, Deputy Director for Requirements at the Department of Defense.

The Defense Department confirmed that the contract would be a single source Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract, which the Pentagon hopes to award in September 2018.

“This competition for the JEDI cloud contract will be transparent and a full and open competition,” said John Gibson, Chief Management Officer at the Department of Defense.

“I don’t want you to lose sight of the reason we’re doing it. This is about increased effectiveness and capability. But more importantly to me, it’s about life and limb,” said Essye Miller, Acting CIO at the Defense Department.

Government Matters spoke with industry representatives the Friday after the event, and they presented their views on the contract.

“The DoD presenters made clear that they were trying to move ‘at the speed of relevance,’” said Kevin Cummins, vice president of Technology at the Professional Services Council. “The real measure of success is whether it meets the needs of war fighters.”

While the event was supposed to clear things up, some questions remain.

“They’re going so fast that they could make this program irrelevant,” said Roger Waldron, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement. “There are so many questions around the scope of the work to be acquired, the comprehensive nature of it. It still remains a huge issue that it’s a single award ID/IQ… The RFP is incomplete and they’re asking industry to comment on something that’s not done.”

Some industry members are skeptical of the proposed timeline.

“I think everyone wants them succeed, unfortunately history hasn’t shown that rapid efforts like this always succeed,” said Trey Hodkins, senior VP of Public Sector at ITAPS. “Some of the caution you’re hearing is that we want to get it right.”